The dungeon was a pit of silence and stench, where stone walls sweated with damp and rats skittered through shadows too deep for torchlight to pierce. He had been chained there since the night of their capture, his wrists bound in iron, his back lashed raw by the guards' cruelty. Time had dissolved into a haze of darkness, measured only by the drip of water and the scrape of the gaoler's boots.
Pain was constant, a weight upon his limbs, yet his mind clung stubbornly to one thought: she lives. He did not know where they had taken her, nor in what manner they had confined her, but he felt her presence like a flame that would not be extinguished. Whenever despair gnawed at him, he heard her voice, soft yet unyielding, whispering through memory: "We are one. No matter the chains, no matter the walls."
It was this memory that steadied him now, as the gaoler approached with his evening portion—a bowl of thin gruel, sour and cold. The man set it down without a word, his eyes glinting with disdain. Yet as he turned to leave, the prisoner lifted his head.
"Tell me," he said, his voice hoarse but firm, "the girl—where is she? Does she yet breathe?"
The gaoler sneered. "Best not to ask, lad. Hope will only sharpen your torment."
Yet in the slight hesitation of the man's step, in the faint quiver of his words, he caught a glimmer of truth. She lived. The certainty struck his heart like a bell rung in the night.
---
That night, pain roused him from shallow sleep. The wounds upon his back burned anew, yet his spirit refused surrender. He shifted against the chains, the iron biting deep, and fixed his gaze upon the sliver of light seeping through the crack beneath the door.
She is out there. She is waiting. I must endure for her.
---
Days blurred, yet each moment was a trial of will. The master himself came once, descending into the dungeon with his cane tapping against the stone. His presence was like frost, chilling every breath of air.
"You are stubborn, boy," the old man remarked, studying him as though he were no more than an animal caught in a snare. "Most beg by now. They cry, they curse, they bargain. Yet you sit there with eyes that defy me."
"I have nothing to beg of you," he answered, his voice quiet but resolute. "For what I desire is beyond your grasp."
"And what is that?"
"Her."
The master's lips curved in a cruel smile. "Ah. The girl. Such a fragile tether to bind your courage. I wonder—if I were to bring her here, and let you watch her suffer, would you still speak so boldly?"
At this, his heart clenched, yet he did not waver. "Yes. For love is not undone by cruelty. It is tempered by it."
The master's eyes narrowed, the cruel amusement fading. Without another word, he turned and climbed the steps, his cane striking the stone in sharp echoes. Yet in his silence, the prisoner knew he had struck a blow. His defiance had unsettled the tyrant.
---
Later, when the dungeon fell again into quiet, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift back to brighter hours. He saw her face lit by candlelight on the night of the celebration, her laughter trembling like music through the air. He recalled the forest path they had taken, the way her hand had trembled in his until steadied by his own. These memories became his sustenance, richer than the gruel they fed him, stronger than the iron they bound upon his wrists.
And in the stillness, something remarkable stirred within him. Though walls divided them, though he had not seen her since the night of their capture, he felt her presence—faint, like a whisper carried upon the wind. A vow unspoken yet heard across the silence.
Hold fast, dearest. I am here.
The words were not his own, yet they breathed into him as though borne from her very lips. His heart quickened, his spirit rising against despair.
"She lives," he murmured, his voice breaking with sudden fervour. "She lives, and she has not forsaken me."
---
That night, as snow fell softly beyond the dungeon's barred grates, he made his own vow into the darkness.
"They may chain my body, but not my soul. They may break my flesh, but not my will. Until breath fails me, I shall endure—for her, and for the day when these chains shall fall, and we shall stand free together."
The rats crept closer, the torches burned low, but his words hung in the air like a shield. In that dungeon of endurance, hope became his armour, and love his unbroken flame.